There's No Doubt That This Will Make Me Strong
by mosylu
Summary: (because it's the hardest thing I've ever done) Cisco thought it was just going to be a movie night like they always used to have - a chance to reconnect, after the mess with Killer Frost. Caitlin has other plans. Written before the finale aired.


(A/N) Written before the finale aired. Title from "Honeythief" by Halou Written for lordofbamfs on Tumblr, for my musical prompts series.

* * *

When Caitlin suggested a movie night, Cisco jumped at it. They hadn't had a movie night since - shit, wow, Christmas time at least. "Your place?" he asked her.

"It's a wreck," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Oh, is there a sock on the floor? How do you live in a pit of filth like that?"

She scrunched up her entire face at him for that, but said, "Everything's been so out of control that I really haven't had time to clean, and _she_ certainly wasn't concerned with keeping things nice."

Yikes. Right. Killer Frost had dropped in at Caitlin's for a time. They'd seen the aftereffects when they'd checked her apartment, just on the off-chance. "Wasn't concerned with keeping things nice" was an understatement of epic proportions.

"Your place?" she said. "Please?"

"Okay, fine," he said, rooting around for his keys. "I'll grab the food on the way home. How about India Palace?"

"Oh, you know what, I have a few things I'd really like to finish up here, and I don't know how long they'll take. What if I pick up the food so it's still hot?" She looked at her hands, flexing them. They didn't need to run the A/C for any room she was in anymore. "Kind of hot. I'll drive fast."

He fully expected her to slide right past the India Palace suggestion. Indian food fell in her "adventurous" category and Caitlin was feeling the opposite of adventurous these days. But she walked in his apartment with bags fragrant with curry and rice and naan. She'd even gotten him the super-spicy, oniony, garlicky curry that she always complained made him breathe death all over her whenever he ate it.

He knew something was seriously up when she didn't veto the first movie he suggested, a high-concept horror/sci-fi monster movie that she'd shot down with _ugh, no, Cisco_ when it had come out in theaters and he'd begged her to see it with him.

He put the remote down, twisted around to stare her dead in the eyes, and said, "Okay, what'd you break?"

"What?"

"You're being all nice tonight."

"You're my best friend. I can't be nice to you now?"

"Sure, but the last time you were _this_ nice, you'd broken my - " Hang on, what had she broken? He actually didn't remember anymore, even though he'd been so pissed. "Anyway, my point is you're acting suspicious."

Her gaze wavered, then dropped. "I'm - I wanted to spend some time with you." She worried at the bracelet on her wrist. "You know. To make up a little. Not that I can ever make up - "

"For what? Going kinda frosty on us? It was scary as hell, I'll give you that, but nobody died. Especially not Iris. Nobody got hurt."

"Nobody's hands got frozen off," she mumbled.

"Yes. Right! Exactly." He held both hands up, wagging his fingers. "See? Still here. You never did that."

"But I could," she said. "Still, I could."

"Do you hate me for being able to turn your brains into butter and your bones into powder?" He waggled his fingers again.

"Cisco! Of course not. You would never."

"In other realities, I have," he said. Reverb had especially liked that bones-into-powder frequency, as well as the one that made someone's colon try to crawl out their mouth. That one always made the little fucker laugh.

Cisco hated that he'd been right about being able to sense other Ciscos across the multiverse, because some of them were even nastier customers than Reverb.

"But not here, so - " She stopped.

He smirked.

"Fine," she said. "Point taken."

"You should know by now, punishing you for something you never did in this reality would be short-sighted and petty, and that's not what I'm about."

"I don't think you should punish me."

"You just think you should?"

She reached out and opened up her takeout carton of chicken korma. "I want one night of nice, normal hanging out as friends. The way we used to."

"I can do that," he said, picking up his own carton of curry. "I wanna do that. I've missed this."

"Me too," she said.

"Okay. Hanging-out-like-usual night, commencing now." He took a big bite of curry and felt his entire mouth go up in flames. Aw yeah, that was the stuff.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "You're brushing your teeth after you eat, though."

"Yup," he said, swallowing. "We're still watching this," he added, hitting play. "It's actually pretty smart and funny. And I swear there's only like three on-screen eviscerations. Four, tops."

"Ugh," she muttered, but didn't grab for the remote. She ate her food, squeezing her eyes shut at the first murders, and when she was done, took her takeout box to the kitchen to throw away.

She didn't sit back down though. Instead, she drifted around his apartment, strangely restless. "My earring!" she exclaimed, holding up a twist of gold chains and beads from where it had been sitting next to a lamp for eight months.

He said, "I've been telling you it was here," and grinned as she tucked it carefully into her purse.

She actually opened his coat closet. "How did I ever leave two coats and three hats here?"

"Got me." He watched with raised brows as she pulled them out. "You're taking them back? Now? It's in the eighties out there."

"They're some of my favorites!"

"Given they've been here at least six months, I'm gonna call bullshit on that."

But she folded them up and set them on top of her purse anyway. "Wouldn't you like to have part of your closet back?"

He snorted. "C'mere, weirdo. You're missing the movie."

She came and flopped down next to him, kicking off her shoes. She squinted at the screen. "Why do you like movies with so many mutilations?"

He didn't bother answering that. She curled up catlike in the corner of the sofa. Also catlike, she eventually oozed over to cuddle into his side. He ran his fingers down her upper arm and felt her droop against his shoulder, drifting into sleep. He didn't tease her for it, though. She'd had a long day.

Long year.

Hadn't they all.

Since it was tickling his arm, he played with her hair. Her eyes had come back brown, but her hair had stayed white, and no matter what kit she used or salon she tried, the dyes didn't take evenly. It was patchy, like a palomino coat, streaks and blotches of red and brown and white. She grumbled about it constantly and wore a lot of hats and buns.

He waited until the last spray of blood died down to wake her up. "Hey, you. Carnage is done with."

She blinked awake, snorting a little. "Oh, I fell asleep on you. I'm sorry. Tell me I didn't drool."

"Yep," he said. "All down my arm. I just went and washed it all off."

She swatted him and got up to clean up the last of the detritus from dinner.

"Dude, you're not my maid," he said, but let her, because he felt full and lazy and thought she might feel better, fussing around like this.

"Ice cream in the freezer," he called out. "Want any?"

"No," she said. "That's okay."

Oh, right.

He got up and got it for himself, plus a spoon. "Hot chocolate?" he offered.

She shook her head but settled back on the couch with him, talking about practically anything except Killer Frost. If not for her weird hair and the way the ice cream wasn't quite softening up as he ate it, he could have thought that whole thing had been a dream.

When she caught him yawning over his ice cream, she said, "I should go."

"Nnnnuuuuh, you can stay. Crash on the couch, s'ok."

"No, I should go. Your trash is full. I'll take it downstairs."

He let her do that too, because it really was about to overflow. He left the ice cream on the coffee table and walked her to the door. She hugged him so hard he felt bone creak. He pulled back. "Hey," he said. "What?"

She chewed her lower lip. Her eyes were big and unreadable.

"What?" he said again.

"You're a good person," she said. "I don't say that often enough. You're one of the finest men I know."

He shrugged, one-shouldered. "Just doing my best," he said.

"Your best is so much better than anybody else's."

He squirmed, uncomfortable as always with any praise that wasn't about something he'd designed or built. "And your best is better than you give it credit for," he said.

She shook her head and looked away.

"Hey," he said. "Hey. No. Listen. I know it's been rough lately. Killer Frost and Julian and Savitar and all. It's true you've done some not-good things, but you're making your amends. Working the program, whatever. You're a good person, too."

She gave him a little smile. "Bye, Cisco."

"See ya," he said.

* * *

Four hours later, he sat straight up in bed and said, "Fuck."

He kicked the covers off and went tearing through his apartment, trying to find one thing that belonged to her, one thing she'd handled for even ten minutes tonight. Nothing. Her light summer coat was gone. She'd remembered her filmy little scarf, and left with both earrings. She'd taken the dinner trash with her, down to the last napkin.

And she'd carefully, systematically, taken back everything she'd ever left here that belonged to her.

" _Fuck_ ," he said again, and grabbed his keys and his phone.

On his way to her place, driving too fast, he called constantly. "Caitlin. Pick up. Caitlin. I know you're there. What'd you do? Caitlin!"

Every call went straight to voicemail.

He parked crookedly in front of her building and took the stairs two at a time. He hammered on her door until someone from another apartment yelled at him. Then, already half-knowing what he'd find, he unlocked it with her spare key and stepped inside.

It was empty.

Not just of Caitlin, but of any sign of human habitation. Furniture, rugs, pictures, TV, books. Everything was gone. He went from room to room and it was the same story everywhere.

"Oh, Cisco, my place is just a wreck," he snarled to himself. "Let's go to your place." He ripped open cabinets and closets in the hope of finding a towel she'd missed, a crumpled receipt, a fossilized tissue, a broken necklace hiding in the cracks.

Something that would have soaked up her presence enough that he could vibe off it.

But Caitlin Snow was the queen of thorough. She'd cleared herself out of her apartment with the ruthless precision of a surgeon removing a tumor.

If he went to Star Labs, he was pretty sure he'd find her lab cleared in the same way - everything that was particularly hers gone, everything that was too general, too communal for him to get a good vibe from left behind.

He sat down in the middle of what had been her bedroom, now just four walls and a carpet with random indentations, both bigger and smaller for its emptiness. He dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Caitlin. Where did you go?"

FINIS


End file.
